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Man presses on in bid to build replica of 1812 schooner

Eric Macklin displays a model of his passion, the War of 1812 schooner Nancy. (BILL SANDFORD FOR THE TORONTO STAR)

By Kenneth KiddFEATURE WRITER

Sun., May 3, 2009

As the War of 1812 bicentennial creeps up, the slender hopes of the (once-victorious) Canadians may now rest on the financially slight and quixotic shoulders of one Eric Macklin.

In fits and starts over the last few decades, Macklin has been trying to raise enough money to build a replica of HM Schooner Nancy, a vessel whose exploits in the War of 1812 would do any master and commander proud.

These days find Barrie resident Macklin embarking on his latest bid, but the waters look as choppy as ever.

Last fall, another group trying to build a replica of HMS Detroit, based in Amherstburg, Ont., came to a sorry end when it ran out of money and had to sell the ship's hull to an American venture in Rhode Island.

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Which means that, come the bicentennial celebrations in just three years, the Americans will be able to put as many as a dozen replicas of 1812 warships on the Great Lakes.

And on the victorious Canadian side? Precisely zero, once you exclude the two small boats in Penetanguishene that, because of safety regulations, are no longer allowed to leave harbour under their own sail.

Macklin, whose career has included long stints as a bank manager and an aborted run for mayor of the former City of Scarborough, still thinks he can change that shutout on the lakes, still talks as if he's underway.

"We can finish her in a year and I'd like to have her ready prior to the spring of 2012," says Macklin, now 60 and retired.

In order to meet modern regulations around safety and navigation equipment, the replica Nancy would have to be slightly larger than the original schooner's 80 feet by 20 feet.

And there would be other alterations.

"The cannons will be done in (light gauge) steel with ordnance tubing," says Macklin. "The original cannons weighed a ton each, and I don't need that kind of weight on my deck.

"She'll carry less sail area because the sails will actually be in tea-coloured Dacron. There will be no canvas on board this ship."

So why recreate the Nancy, when dozens of other armed ships plied the Great Lakes during the War of 1812?

There's cost, for one. As a schooner, rather than a larger brigantine or full-blown ship of the line, the Nancy was a relative lightweight. Macklin reckons she could be rebuilt for around $2.7 million, one-third the likely cost of replicating HMS Detroit. But the little schooner also has a glorious history, not to mention a Macklin family connection.

"The Nancy was small change, but I think it's a great story," says Barry Gough, professor emeritus of history at Wilfrid Laurier University and author of Through Water, Ice and Fire, a book about the Nancy. "It would be wonderful to get something done for 2012."

Built in 1789, the Nancy was designed to carry furs on the Upper Great Lakes for the Montreal-based North West Company's fur traders. At the outbreak of war, and fearing the loss of its valuable trade area to the Americans, the firm immediately offered up its vessels for military service.

Outfitted with a handful of cannon, the Nancy was made part of the Provincial Marine and later the Royal Navy itself, ferrying supplies and American prisoners of war.

But her chief fame, ironically, came with her demise. When the Americans gained control of Lake Erie, supplies from York (Toronto) had to be transported overland, up Yonge St. to Lake Simcoe and then across to Georgian Bay via the Nottawasaga River.

From there, the Nancy would carry provisions and troops to Sault Ste. Marie and Fort Michilimackinac, which controlled the straits between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan – making her a worthy target.

Warned that an attack was imminent, Lt. Miller Worsley moved the Nancy up the Nottawasaga River, unloaded her three guns and built land fortifications.

The Americans arrived near present-day Wasaga Beach with much larger warships and nearly 400 men. Even with re-enforcements, Worsley had just 20 seamen and soldiers from the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, 10 Canadians and 44 Indians.

The artillery duel lasted for the better part of a day before Worsley decided to torch the Nancy, blow up his blockhouse and escape overland. The Americans left two ships behind, the USS Scorpion and USS Tigress, to guard Georgian Bay.

But Worsley wasn't finished. Several days later, he returned to the scene of battle with 18 men and supplies on two bateaux, the flat-bottomed boats used by fur traders. With the Americans nowhere in sight, Worsley and his men began paddling the roughly 675-kilometre journey to Fort Michilimackinac.

After just six days, they got within 64 km of the fort when they spied Scorpion and Tigress. Worsley hid in a nearby cove until nightfall, then quietly slipped past the American ships in darkness. Once at Michilimackinac, he hatched a plan. With his sailors and more men from the Royal Newfoundland crammed into four small boats, he headed back to the American ships and found Tigress anchored alone.

Worsley made his move at night, paddling up and overwhelming the crew of the Tigress. The next morning, the American prisoners were sent off to Michilimackinac under guard. And Worsley waited.

The Scorpion returned a couple of days later, suspecting nothing, and anchored about three km from the Tigress. Worsley's men hid or donned greatcoats to conceal their red tunics and the U.S. flag was left flying as the Tigress slowly moved toward the Scorpion. At dawn, the Tigress pulled alongside and, as Worsley later wrote: "So little were they apprehensive of our design that they were employed washing Decks."

Worsley opened fire, and within minutes his soldiers were swarming the American ship, which soon surrendered. He'd not only avenged the attack on the Nancy, he'd won control of Lake Huron with his newly christened HMS Surprise and HMS Confiance.

OVER THE ENSUING decades, the Nancy was gradually buried in shifting sand and more-or-less forgotten until the 1920s. That's when a few cottagers and nautical enthusiasts started poking about, among them journalist C.H.J. Snider, Toronto dentist F.J. Conboy, artist C.W. Jefferys and Macklin's grandfather, Alfred, a doctor.

By sheer fluke, it was Conboy who found the Nancy in 1927 on a small island when he tried to drive in a stake. He and the others were soon digging up the rest. The next year, a small museum was opened, forerunner of today's Nancy Island Historic Site.

An elaborate scale model of the ship, donated by the cottagers, now sits in the barracks at Fort York, which is, by Macklin's count, its sixth home.

Over the years, his efforts to fund a full-size replica have mostly met with frustration, though he did raise enough money to build a bateau (since given to the National War Museum in Ottawa) and a replica of the Nancy's accompanying longboat (now with the Sea Cadets in Sarnia.)

He's now applying for money from the provincial government to fund a feasibility study, step one in trying to get politicians and businesses to come aboard.

But skeptics abound. And relations between Macklin and the Nancy Island Historic Site have not always been warm. Macklin still bristles about how the Nancy's hull was left exposed to the elements for many years before being moved into the current museum building in 1985.

"He hasn't directly contacted us as managers of Nancy Island Historic Site," says Marilyn Beecroft, education co-ordinator for the central zone of Ontario Parks, who is similarly promoting War of 1812 festivities at a time of limited funds.

"We're trying to do everything we can to bring awareness of the bicentennial to the forefront, so that by 2012 we'll have something to show for it, gut in terms of a replica of the Nancy, that has not been on our list because, quite frankly, I don't think anybody felt there was that kind of money out there."

The view is similar from the Niagara Peninsula, where much of the war was fought.

"I think there's an interest in doing these sort of things, but whether anyone is going to come along and hand someone a big cheque and say, `Here you go, build your schooner,' I don't know," says Jim Hill, superintendent of heritage with the Niagara Parks Commission.

Gough, for one, can't help but feel disheartened, even though he hasn't as yet been recruited for Macklin's efforts. "The Americans have been really good about ship replicas, and it happens in lots of locations," he says. "I can't understand why Canadians are so reluctant."

So, does Macklin ever feel despondent? He insists not, and he vows to continue, likening his long quest to the launch of the Toronto Blue Jays. "It took (Paul) Godfrey 25 years to bring baseball back to Toronto."

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